Should politicians have to take truth serum?

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Given the tendency for politicians of all types to lie, if it was possible, would it be a good idea to force a kind of 'truth serum' in which during their career/campaigns, all politicians had to tell the truth?

You would still get to hear opposing views. But they wouldn't be hidden behind fancy words or what the public wanted to hear. They would be what the politician thought was actually true.

Journalists could ask questions to expose hypocrites, bigots and other bad people of all kinds. Across all the parties.

I think some people are a bit too naive to see through lies MPs tell. And it's uncharitable to believe 'the public get what they deserve'. 1 Not everyone elects who runs their country/county/town. 2 We don't use that same standard with other con artists. If a cowboy builder ruins someone's home, we don't blame the home owner for eg.

I'm a left winger but I'm trying to say this in as impartial way as possible and I would appreciate it if all sides could do the same and if we could leave 'Joe Biden/Keir Starmer/left wing politician this', 'Donald Trump/Boris Johnson/right wing politician that' out of it.

The only argument I can see against it is one of consent, but people decide to become MPs rather than it being something which is forced on you like life/medical procedures/school. And when someone becomes a politician, their past is dragged up, so they already make decisions which crucially change their lives in order to seek a life in politics.

Is there a specific drug you have in mind.Most drugs formerly used as a truth serum are not legal,I could be wrong.

Any politician worth his/her salt is quite adept at deceiving people without telling outright lies.

It's called bulls****: Statements so vague and opaque that factual correction becomes impossible...

So a politician would be likely be able to mislead the public even while under the influence of a truth serum.

The current occupant of the White House just takes it to the next level by being adept at deceiving people while telling blatant and outright lies… and even more bulls***, of course...

If there was a perfect truth serum, no, I wouldn’t support politicians being made to take it for a few different reasons.

Firstly the security reasons. Nothing else needs saying there really.

Secondly because philosophically I just reject the idea that somebody’s views on a complex subject can be packaged into a neat bow that’s either true or false. When a politician gives a mealy mouthed answer about how they see different sides and would need to weigh up different factors in a given situation, they’re usually already telling the truth. This is particularly true for government ministers, who might enter a post with strong views and then find that actually things are much more complicated than that...

Our society is already very cynical about politicians, I don’t think we have a gullibility problem (although certain high profile issues have exposed a degree of that). If anything people simply don’t realise how complex the issues are.

No. In fact I'm thinking even just having a stipulation like how lawyers have to tell the truth and if it looks bad for their client, they can fudge the facts but can't outright tell an untruth. At the moment, you're not even allowed to call out a liar in Westminster. I'm not sure if you can in American politics - I seem to remember it being considered unseemly when someone yelled 'you lie!' at Obama years ago but I'm not sure if he got into trouble.

I didn't know truth serums were a real thing already, shows my lack of scientific knowledge on this...

Is the reason they're illegal to do with side effects or the ethics of giving a truth serum or something in between? It would be a voluntary decision - if you wish to go into politics, you must take it - rather than mass drugging the whole population. Like for eg how we need to wear a mask in shops due to the virus or we need to obey the speed limit in cars. If we don't want to do that, we can online shop or we can take the bus/walk, but if we wish to physically shop, we must wear a mask and if we wish to drive cars, we must obey speed limits. Lying, by the wrong people, can for eg be used to give false pretence for war so it has deadly consequences.

There is no absolute truth serum,drugs like sodium thiopental and madazolam have been used to try to get information.They don't always work,what there function is is to put a person in an uninhibited state where they will be willing to speak freely about things they normally would not.They make people open and lucid and unihibited but this is not a guarantee they will give you the information that you want.

A person may talk openly about there sex life in vivid detail or admit embarrassing personal secrets but it's no guarantee they will confess the crime you think they committed.

Are politicians the problem or voters?

No, for a bunch of reasons, chief among which would be them not actually working as the name suggests, but merely makes the person more likely to offer up information regardless of it being true or not. Do you really want politicians that talk more?